Drunk driver jailed for 10 months

STACY MOORE

A Penal man has been jailed for ten months on the occasion of his fourth offence for driving under the influence of alcohol. The sentence was, yesterday, handed down by magistrate Ava Vandenberg-Bailey in the Siparia Magistrates’ Court.

Yesterday, the 45-year-old man of Platanite Trace , Rochard Douglas Road, Penal, was taken before the magistrate to answer the charges of driving under the influence of alcohol, driving without a drivers permit and driving without an insurance. He pleaded guilty to the charges which was laid by PC Tambie.

Vandenberg-Baily read the first charge that on Monday, a team of police officers including Sgt Gosine, PC Tambie, Ramkissoon and others, were on mobile patrol during an anti-crime exercise which was conducted along the Penal Rock Road, when they had cause to stop a vehicle. The magistrate was told that when a breath sample was taken from the defendant, it gave a reading of 90 microgrammes of alcohol per 100 millilitres of breath. A second reading showed 89 microgrammes of alcohol per 100millilitres of breath.

The court heard that, last month, the defendant appeared before the same magistrate to answer a charge of drunk driving . At that hearing, he was disqualified from driving for 18 months and ordered to pay a fine of $5,000 or serve one year in jail.